THE GREAT RESOLVE 

An Essay on the European War 
and the 
Possible Settlements Thereof ' 



D. P. RHODES 






%:^vxfv?i 






THE GREAT RESOLVE 



THE GREAT RESOLVE 

AN ESSAY ON THE EUROPEAN WAR 

AND THE 

POSSIBLE SETTLEMENTS THEREOF 

IN TWO PARTS 

PATRIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION 
THE SOLUTION 



r^' By 



D: P. RHODES 



BOSTON 

R. H. HINKLEY COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 






y/^z^^ 



THE GREAT RESOLVE 



Patriotism and Devolution 

Behold, in Europe, a great wave of patriot- 
ism in mid career. There are, at the same time, 
other phenomena, some correlative, some incon- 
gruous, — as, for example, a clash of industries 
and political ideals, a nation believing itself 
stifled and struggling for air, a religious revival 
with priests and warriors, shoulder to shoulder, 
bearing icons ; there are also sluggards, skulk- 
ers and unwilling soldiers, a pistol nosing them 
in the back. But over and around these more 
or less familiar landmarks of an embattled 
plain presses a weighty flood whose final source, 
a long way back, lay in untilled valleys afford- 
ing livelihood to the erect, if simple, denizens 
thereof — hence to be defended by them unit- 
edly against all comers, until such time as 
growing numbers should compel excursions 
do^vn into the unknown. 

Opinions differ as to the relative significance 
1 



A THE GREAT RESOLVE 

of this feature of the European war. By some 
it is merely taken for granted as an invariable 
concomitant of international disputes which no 
longer figures conspicuously amongst the final 
causes of such disputes, whilst others urge that, 
in the present conflict, love of country and pride 
of race are factors so predominant as to render 
all else of little weight. But there is no disa- 
greement whatever as to the persistent reap- 
pearance of these factors in national quarrels ; 
for everybody knows that, if there were no 
patriots, war would be impossible. Either the 
leader, or the few who hire him, or the many 
who are led must be patriots ; otherwise there 
can be no fighting; adjustment of differences 
carried even unto the amalgamation of two 
races must take place before any question of 
hostility may arise. 

Such being the case, it must always have been 
our duty to put patriotism to the same tests to 
which we are accustomed to put religions, phi- 
losophies and political systems : the test of rea- 
son, the test of sentiment. Have we performed 
this duty! Evidently not; it is, moreover, a 
ticklish and ungrateful business. 

Yet if there was ever a favourable season for 
the disintegration of prejudice, the present mo- 



PATRIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION 6 

ment, for this purpose, seems fairly teeming 
with promise. When one half of mankind is 
engaged in a struggle any settlement of which 
in accordance with accepted ideas will certainly 
imply the most sinister possibilities for both 
the belligerent and the other half, it becomes 
not only permissible but even obligatory to un- 
dertake an examination, as rigorous as possible, 
of that quality in mankind without which no 
such struggle could ever be set afoot. Espe- 
cially is this a time when all rhetoric should be 
suspect. If the tyranny of catchwords and 
high-sounding phrases to which we are always 
more or less subject seems now in a fair way 
to prove more oppressive than ever, a sincere 
and deliberate effort should be made to secure 
some measure of relief. And if, in the process, 
much that we have been accustomed to regard 
as sacred turns out to be so only verbally and 
not solidly founded in sentiment or in reason, 
a further and prodigious effort should be made 
— how prodigious, to be successful, we already 
know too well — to bring the embarrassing and 
false formulas into general discredit. 

The spirit of the clan; tribal jealousies; 
civic pride; national pride; racial pride: — 



4 THE GEEAT EESOLVE 

these are the cherished prepossessions that 
should now be subjected to a most candid scru- 
tiny. They verge so obviously upon one an- 
other that, for the purposes of this essay, they 
may be grouped under the head, patriotism, 
except where otherwise stated. The element, 
nearly always present in patriotism, which is 
derived from climatic and topographical condi- 
tions will not be here considered, since it has no 
immediate bearing on the present inquiry or its 
results. 

Amongst the vexatious questions here to be 
asked are the following : — 

Is pugnacity now, and must it ever remain, 
an essential part of man's composition; if so, 
is it not merely inevitable but even desirable 
that his passion be used for upholding an ideal 
that is to some extent altruistic rather than be 
vented in paltry quarrels'? 

Have patriots ever rested content with half- 
successes 1 If so, may they continue indefinitely 
to be thus satisfied? 

Has any nation ever had so admirable a 
record as to be justified ipso facto in making 
considerable sacrifices to the end of keeping it- 
self in the forefront of civilisation? 

Do we really emulate our famous dead? 



PATRIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION 

How is our competence to deal with difficult 
social and economic questions affected by the 
preoccupations of nationality? 

And the best way to answer the above and 
many correlative questions will be to answer the 
two following : — 

What modifications, if any, of patriotism as 
a motive force may be expected in the future, 
near or remote? 

What modifications of patriotism, if any, are 
clearly desirable in the immediate future, and 
especially in connection with the settlement of 
the European war? 

DESTINY OF PATRIOTISM 

We may begin by postulating man's interest 
in his posterity, — not that this is either a truth 
of the highest certainty or indispensable for the 
purposes of this inquiry, but that it seems a 
reasonably safe starting-point and will serve to 
abridge some of our preliminary steps. Man, 
to be sure, is by no means conspicuous amongst 
animals in his solicitude for generations un- 
born. Even as a provider for his offspring, he 
suffers by comparison with many of the lower 
animals which seem to devote nearly their 
whole energy and an incredible ingenuity to the 



6 THE GKEAT RESOLVE 

protection of their young. Nevertheless the 
public works that he undertakes, both of a 
material and of an intellectual character, 
would be incomprehensible if he had no care 
beyond the egoism of his grandchildren. Con- 
sciously or no, he must somehow be concerned 
for their altruism as well ; i. e., for their con- 
cern for their grandchildren, and so on, ad 
infinitum. Also the childless have counted 
amongst the most thoughtful providers for the 
distant future; and it would be difficult to 
maintain that the most depraved specimens of 
the race were ever quite successful in resisting 
the claims of posterity. 

Keeping this in mind, we may pass on to the 
central theme of the discussion and note that 
patriotism is to no one a mere emotional luxury 
without practical implications. Looking for- 
ward or looking backward, it looks always 
toward achievement, or toward an effort at 
achievement, no matter how hopeless the effort 
may appear. We should, then, consider in what 
ways patriotic endeavour may eventuate in the 
life of a single patriot or of a community of 
patriots and of their posterity. First, the effi- 
cient or fortunate patriot. 



PATRIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION 7 

THE FORTUNATE PATRIOT 

Every true patriot wishes to see his father 
land in the van of civilisation. He applauds 
and seconds all efforts of his countrymen made 
in the direction of better thought, better art, 
better government, better living, greater 
wealth. If jealous neighbours interfere, he 
fights for his country with all the determina- 
tion that in him lies. Finally if, through peace- 
ful or warlike measures or both, his hopes are 
realised and he sees his fatherland indeed and 
admittedly pre-eminent amongst nations, may 
he rest content with this achievement! If he 
may, his patriotism will be satisfied and will 
cease to be for him a moving force. But the 
other nations, by their very existence, will re- 
main a menace to the supremacy of his own. 
They, too, must be supposed to contain patriots, 
— possibly efficient ones. Hence our original 
patriot, or society of patriots, to achieve final 
success, must either contrive the conquest of 
these other nations or, by voluntarily sharing 
with them the secrets of national progress, pro- 
ceed to break down the barriers between nation 
and nation, race and race, community and com- 
munity, until one kind and one degree of civili- 



8 THE GKEAT KESOLVB 

sation shall become the common property of 
mankind. In either event, patriotism, — the 
original motive force, — will dwindle and dis- 
appear. In other words, the highest aims of 
patriotism are suicidal. 

THE UNHAPPY PATKIOT 

But such a state of affairs, or anything nearly 
approaching it, has never been realised upon 
Earth. Men have dreamed it, but it has not 
come to pass. Evidently, the most aspiring 
patriots have been cheated of their goal, either 
by other patriots who were in turn foredoomed 
to failure, or by some other opposition with 
which patriotism had nothing to do. What, 
then, of these unhappy patriots and their pos- 
terity? Sometimes we have seen their aspira- 
tions rudely and completely checked and them- 
selves become traitors not only to their own 
country but to all mankind. Again we have 
seen disappointments and set-backs followed by 
redoubled efforts and real achievement. We 
have seen men described as successful patriots, 
these being of two classes : men who have died 
while in the process of patriotic achievement, 
and others who have seemed to get everything 
they desired in life by using patriotism as a 



PATKIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION y 

means. In these last, the patriotic impulse is 
obviously not unmixed, and in both is it left 
unsatisfied because of the menace from without 
to which their unfinished fabric has always been 
exposed. 

THE CRUCIAL QUESTION 

Hence the question arises, Are civic pride, 
national pride, pride of race, pride of clan, — 
all those forms of esprit de corps which, for 
convenience, we have classed under the head, 
patriotism, — are these destined to a ceaseless 
ebb and flow, partial suppression, partial re- 
crudescence, local triumph and local defeat, as 
long as the race shall endure? Shall they never 
become obsolete either through an absolute vin- 
dication of their virtue or through a final 
demonstration of their futility! 

There can be no doubt that in the acts and 
utterances of the vast majority of mankind is 
implied an affirmative answer to this question, 
as — Yes, patriotic emotion will continue 
throughout the ages to have pretty much the 
same influence on human thought and conduct 
as it has had in the past; it is unlikely that 
men will ever cease to take pride in banding 
together and working for the common weal, and 



10 THE GREAT EESOLVE 

it is equally unlikely that one man or company 
of men will ever conquer the earth and consoli- 
date that conquest in such wise as to render 
patriotism superfluous. 

That anyone returning such an answer should 
ever himself be capable of a patriotic act would 
seem strange but for the fact that nearly all 
patriots are to be found in the earliest and least 
ambitious stages of achievement. If they are, 
for example, earnestly advocating improve- 
ments in the schools of their own town or 
diplomatically securing an advantage for their 
country's trade, it is not inevitable that they 
should look beyond the immediate results of the 
business in hand ; — taking care of the pennies 
should mean that the pounds will take care of 
themselves. To but few has it been vouchsafed 
to consider of a world-dominion; and in these 
the patriotic impulse has generally become so 
embroiled with other motives as to suggest the 
probability that it was about to disappear well 
before its final vindication could be expected. 
We must ask, then, — Is the common-sense view 
of the future justifiable; is it possible that 
patriotism will never be eliminated from human 
concerns either by a perfect realisation of its 
virtue or by a final demonstration of its futil- 



PATRIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION 11 

ity, but will go on repeating its half-successes 
and half-failures to the end of time? 

And the answer must be that this is indeed 
possible, but only on one condition : to wit, that 
the theory of devolution be also justified by the 
event. If the human race has already reached, 
or is soon to reach, its highest point in the scale 
of culture and is thenceforward to degenerate 
in mind or body, to lose gradually the faculties 
of logic and criticism or the energy to make the 
decisions thereof effective, to lose even the 
power to keep records, and to become finally an 
insane or lethargic rabble, shorn of all striking 
significance in the scheme of nature, this devo- 
lutionary process may indeed be accompanied 
by those same manifestations of clan-spirit 
which we have witnessed in its career to date 
and in the careers of many animals. Even upon 
this supposition, it might be possible to forecast 
the eventual disappearance of clan-spirit, but 
we need not here consider a contingency so re- 
mote and so barren of any but a purely logical 
importance. The point which is practically 
important to be established is that, upon any 
theory of our future other than the devolution- 
ary, it is inconceivable that patriotism should 
endure. If, on the whole, we mark time (though 



12 THE GEEAT RESOLVE 

this be but a manner of speaking) or if we in- 
definitely improve our standard of culture in 
those directions which are often so easily dis- 
cernible and always so difficult for a unit of our 
unwieldy bulk to follow, we shall in time become 
incapable of responding to the call of country, 
of glorifying the traditions of a race, of defend- 
ing the rights of a clan, or of asserting the 
superiority of a caste. 

OUR COMMON HERITAGE 

In order to admit this necessity we have but 
to recognise that prime condition of our every 
effort, — that single essential principle of our 
very existence, — which binds the white man to 
the black, the ignoramus to the scholar; nay 
more, which governs every man 's brain and his 
belly in equal degree, links them both to his 
dog's, and, for that matter, levels the whole of 
stalking creation with the dust that is under its 
feet. Abhorrence of monotony is the universal 
rule, — the only one we know. 

In an earlier work,* the present writer has 
endeavoured to show that the available data of 
Nature point unmistakably to a single element 
in a single dimension as constituting the uni- 

* The Philosophy of Change; Macmillan, 1909. 



PATRIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION 13 

verse in which we live and of which we form a 
part ; and, in the course of this work, the single 
constituent element is considered at length in 
its hypothetical, continuous flux from one pat- 
tern to another. No definite goal is in view; 
yet, from this flux, atoms and molecules of 
matter seem inevitably to be evolved, attracting 
one another in accordance with the law of grav- 
itation and creating tri-dimensional illusions for 
the benefit of any suitably organised, sentient 
beings that may later appear in their midst. 
The so-called ether waves, as well, are seen to 
be inevitable, their known velocity affording a 
key, as yet unused, to the single dimension of 
the hypothetical universe. Similarly, matter 
and its peculiar attributes must eventually be 
resolved into the simple element, although that 
condition of the resolution which we call Time 
may not, perhaps, be regarded in the same way 
as in any consideration of a known evolution. 
Matter will be resolved into the simple element 
when all the reciprocal relations of its particles 
are exhausted, each relation having been real- 
ised once and no more. In the interval, matter 
exists as an appearance or illusion to which 
sentient, material beings like ourselves may re- 
spond while remaining insensible to the flux of 



14 THE GKEAT KESOLVE 

its constituent. And in this interval is pro- 
duced our own world and perhaps many others 
that have preceded its birth or will follow after 
its collapse. 

If this theory be accepted, the abundance and 
variety of Nature and the mysteries of thought 
remain still inscrutable; for it is evident that 
the manifold details of our world may not be 
derived from, nor explained by, the considera- 
tion of any universe, apparent or hypothetical. 
And indeed, in accordance with the self-same 
theory, it is inconceivable that these riddles 
should be finally solved and any bit of reality 
positively perceived until all the illusions of the 
one-dimensional universe have been exploited. 
Yet an attentive survey of this hypothetical uni- 
verse — which universe, be it repeated, not only 
seems to be pointedly suggested by the results 
of modern chemical and astronomical research 
but may be shown to justify its assumption up 
to the point of the evolution of geometrical con- 
cepts and of matter with all its peculiar attri- 
butes — serves to render all human problems 
less vexatious in character, less prolific of futile 
and baneful speculation. For, in the universe 
of one dimension, the known data of Nature are 
at once perceived to be illusory yet possessed 



PATRIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION 15 

of a negative significance, whilst the search for 
truth appears consistently as a destructive 
process up to the final step. Hence, all else 
being equal, the more finished your syllogism 
and the more solid its premises, the sooner will 
it be discarded. Tradition is hereby shorn of 
its meretricious display; Indolence, represent- 
ing evil to be good in order to let well alone, 
suffers a loss of countenance; and the general 
duty to prune our civilisation of its withered 
boughs in favour of the younger shoots becomes 
more obvious than ever. Any familiar human 
institution may then be maintained for an in- 
definite period but may not be invested with 
sanctity nor regarded as either indestructible 
or indispensable for the welfare of the race. 
When the burthen of it comes to be sorely felt, 
the question of relief may be taken up without 
serious misgivings or acute regret. 

A comprehensive summary of the philosophy 
of change may not be included within the limits 
of this essay. In connection, however, with our 
discussion of patriotism and its destiny, it is de- 
sirable to notice the bearing of this principle of 
continuity on certain of the normal pursuits of 
man. Let us proceed, then, to a brief consider- 
ation of our common heritage. 



16 THE GKEAT KESOLVE 

A man may make speeches or play tennis or 
eat a quail every day for a considerable period, 
since the conditions of each performance differ 
so widely from those of the preceding ones as 
to leave him no doubt that his act is much more 
a new one than the repetition of an old. If the 
speechmaker is notorious amongst us for ^^ re- 
peating himself/' as we say, none knows better 
than he that our estimate of him is but a man- 
ner of speaking ; if he were really in danger of 
repeating himself, his terror would be extreme, 
and no power could draw a word from his lips. 
With the assiduous tennis-player, it is the pros- 
pect of a change in bodily condition, or of new 
strokes executed or witnessed, or of a novel 
score and contest, or of an improved standing 
amongst his rivals, that brings him daily into 
court. The peculiar meat and flavour of a quail 
may afford the highest possible relish for a 
week of dining. And in dining or tennis-playing 
or speechmaking, or in any other of our activi- 
ties, — whether bodily or intellectual, and no 
matter how habitual, — we run no real risk of 
repetition. In this continuous universe in which 
we live — unless all appearances are not merely 
deceptive but even nugatory — it is certain that 
no act of man's, no process of Nature's, may be 



PATKIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION 17 

repeated. Nevertheless, in our obscurity, we 
take account of seeming similarities, seeming 
repetitions. At the outset, they may lie attrac- 
tively in the path of least resistance; but, as 
they accumulate, they become wearisome, then 
disgusting, then fraught with menace. It is as 
if Chaos itself were stealing upon us like a 
deadly gas. We must retreat, if we may, shun- 
ning Stability as that limit on the hither side 
of which we have our being. If we are merely 
speechmakers or tennis-players or diners off the 
fat of the land, escape should be easy; if we are 
prisoners in a cell or victims of inquisitorial 
torture, madness or death may be the only 
refuge. And generally, in every-day life, a time 
comes to the most bibulous when he may per- 
haps do other things but may not drink ; to the 
most studious when he may do nearly anything 
but read ; to the scribe when his pen seems as 
a giant oak ; to the poet when all the world is 
wrapped in fog; to the philosopher when he 
excels in platitudes. 

Patriotic endeavour is probably never as en- 
grossing a pursuit as any of the above may be ; 
moreover, it is generally interwoven with a host 
of other pursuits. On the other hand, it is 
seldom of so passionate or vicious a character 



18 THE GEEAT RESOLVE 

as to escape, for long at a time, the searching 
glance of reason ; and furthermore, as we have 
seen, it is forever thwarting its own aims and 
suffering a self-inflicted defeat. This persist- 
ent failure to improve its standing amongst the 
rival concerns of life does but invite the ap- 
proach of that dreaded cloud of similarities and 
repetitions which are always threatening human 
unreadiness. Suppose an ardent patriot and 
otherwise average man to live forever, remem- 
bering his own experience of a century as easily 
as we remember ours of a twelvemonth; no 
amount of interweaving of his patriotic career 
with other pursuits could avert the arrival of a 
day whenceforward it would be impossible for 
him to take the least interest in the welfare of 
a nation or the rights of a clan. Howsoever 
needy or perilous his situation in life, he would 
be incapable of any effort toward claiming the 
protection of either nation or clan; or if he 
should indeed manage to utter the appropriate 
words to this end, they would at once be recog- 
nised as a hollow sham. Even so will become 
the race of us. How far an hereditary aptitude 
for ideas may accelerate the process, is a ques- 
tion that need not concern us here, for no such 
factor is required in the final result. History 



PATEIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION 19 

alone, uncertain though her vision, may make 
the implements with which all national barriers 
will be swept from the face of practical affairs. 
Certain other barriers will disappear at the 
same time; but, inasmuch as the world's most 
urgent business of the moment is with the idea 
of nationality, we shall do well to begin by ad- 
mitting that the bombast of Trafalgar Day and 
the Fourth of July exalts that which is doomed. 
Patriotism, as an emotion, as a career, as a 
political device, is doomed to desuetude, even as 
feudalism, slavery and political religions; — 
doomed, that is, unless the race itself is doomed 
to devolution. Which perhaps the race is ; but 
which the race will never admit. If tomorrow 
a biologist should discover that we had but one 
chance in a thousand of escaping a long, contin- 
uous and eventually fatal decline in bodily and 
mental efficiency, we might all become professed 
devolutionists in theory; but, in the practical 
affairs of life, we should doubtless take no ac- 
count of the new doctrine, or, if we did, our de- 
cline would be rapid enough to startle and ex- 
asperate the biologist. 

FOUNDATIONS OF PATRIOTISM 

We have now to consider another aspect of 
patriotism, — to ask. What is its origin? 



20 THE GKEAT RESOLVE 

Let us begin by admitting that the future is 
the unique concern of us all. When we enter 
upon a study of history or go forth to view an 
admirable monument of the past, our incentive 
is either the intrinsic pleasure hoped for in the 
experience or the advantage to be gained there- 
from for ourselves or others; it is never, in 
tolerably sane persons, the possil)ility of be- 
coming actually embedded in the past. Only in 
its bearing on the future is the past of any in- 
terest. Moreover, the future, in its general out- 
lines or as between certain alternatives, is al- 
ways susceptible of forecast, whilst the past, 
which may be neither lived over again nor de- 
rived from experiential elements in our actual 
possession, — since Nature does not proceed 
backward, — is largely a subject of surmise, 
and no two persons may hold quite the same 
views concerning it. History gathers up the 
threads of human action and hands them to 
each new generation who, looking backward, 
find them already worn filmy and inextricable. 
Though Caesar crossing the Eubicon be justifi- 
ably regarded as a fact, it is a fact absolutely 
devoid of meaning except in connection with a 
vast number of other facts each of which, when 
similarly considered, must forever remain 



PATRIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION 21 

matter of conjecture. Logic tiere is of slight 
competence; opinion and sentiment mnst be 
given free play. 

In the argument, just completed, on the des- 
tiny of patriotism, opinion and sentiment have 
figured not at all; the subject lay within the 
domain of logic. On the other hand, a discus- 
sion of the foundations of patriotism may not 
be conducted in the same rigorous manner; no 
more is it an indispensable forerunner of the 
appeal which will be made in the second part 
of this essay. Nevertheless, since a tolerably 
plausible exposition of this subject might have 
some bearing — not on the ulterior destiny of 
patriotism, but — on the immediately proximate 
status of patriotism as a motive force, it should 
be stated, as briefly as possible and in well- 
worn words, that the origin of patriotism, in so 
far as climate and natural surroundings are not 
involved, would seem mainly to be found in the 
two following conditions of our early existence 
as a race : — 

(1) The necessity of primitive men to band 
together for self-protection in the usual occu- 
pations of the time, and the contingent obliga- 
tion to construct an ethical ideal which should 
justify a resort to aggressive combat ; and 



22 THE GREAT EESOLVE 

(2) That inherent discontent — mainspring 
of our existence — which, while driving the most 
active individuals forward to improve their 
condition in life, caused their less enterprising 
and more reflective brethren to magnify the 
deeds of their ancestors. 

Thus self-interest and religion combined to 
establish a kind of cult of the tribe to which 
even its most powerful and ambitious members 
might seldom prove unfaithful, — a crude sys- 
tem, no doubt, and one more suited to savages 
than to a race of intellects busy with all manner 
of useful devices. Yet this ingenious race is 
likewise of a tremendous inertia ; and today we 
see the tribal system still in full swing in the 
form of huge nations and alliances of nations 
engaged admittedly in mortal combat. 

As to Condition 1, — it seems impossible to 
discover that the spirit of the clan has afforded 
any but a fleeting and precarious security to the 
individual in his pursuit of happiness. Imper- 
fect though it be, this safeguard has doubtless 
been indispensable through ages upon ages; 
just as certainly may it be discarded at any 
moment when its true character and implica- 
tions have become clear to a considerable num- 
ber of persons possessing influence in our af- 



PATRIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION 23 

fairs. And it is precisely this revelation that 
may not unreasonably be hoped for as a conse- 
quence of the present European war. To no 
practical purpose whatever have political phi- 
losophers, contemplating the superficies of 
events, deigned to argue that nations, though 
incapable of rising to those heights of virtue 
which are accessible to individuals, are always 
saved from descent into those depths of iniquity 
which are familiar to countless units in every 
generation. In point of consequences, material 
or moral, though nations be indeed incapable of 
rising even to the height of common justice, they 
are forever demonstrating that, in the slightest 
lapse from their accustomed plane of morality 
or even in preserving the most perfect tradi- 
tional uprightness, they may cause more misery 
and whet vicious appetites more effectually than 
any conceivable society of loose-lived indi^dd- 
uals could ever manage to do. More of this 
later on. 

Meanwhile, as to Condition 2, — present dis- 
content suggesting a reverence for ancestors, — 
there seems no way of escape from a similar 
con\dction. To read the words and deeds of our 
famous dead is not merely obligatory but even 
entertaining and often either thrilling or sur- 



24 THE GEEAT EESOLVE 

prisingly suggestive. Yet our cMef concern, in 
this occupation, is to profit by the errors of the 
most admirable amongst them; every effort to 
derive a paragon for our own day ends in fail- 
ure. Vaguely as we know our forefathers, we 
could not admit them to our society; no more, 
upon consideration, could we wish it were pos- 
sible to introduce ourselves in their midst. Any 
of us who should suddenly find ourselves 
amongst the sturdy Puritans of early New Eng- 
land should be not only hideously uncomfortable 
but severely disapproving, as well; and, to 
climb still higher in the family tree, we might 
prefer to remain uninvited to our rich uncle's 
board rather than dodge the post-prandial 
bones. Edward with the garter would probably 
appear too heavily humourous ; we should dis- 
like to roll Kalkstein in a carpet even at the 
Great Elector's behest, knowing that his head 
was to come off at the end of the journey; nor 
can we imagine ourselves clutching at political 
liberty with the gesture of ninety-three. No- 
body of today would dare write one of Shake- 
spere's plays if Shakespere had not already 
written it himself, nor to speak of Nature as 
Newton did. *' Each man to his time," it has 
been said; ^^ if we can do as well for our time 



PATRIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION 25 

as these have done for theirs, we may still carry 
the banner of civilisation in the vanguard of the 
nations.'' Yet the most moderate of such pa- 
triotic dicta would probably lose their force for 
any who might assist, even as passive specta- 
tors, at the events of a bygone age. 

On the other hand, our illustrious ancestors 
— if, by a similar miracle, they might have sur- 
veyed the world that was later to be ours of 
today — would doubtless have looked on us with 
a similar displeasure and disapprobation. Be- 
ing ignorant of the intervening steps in the 
process of evolution, they must take the final 
product as they found it and compare us with 
themselves. Their censure would, of course, 
have been various and we may not guess very 
many of the counts in the total indictment. 
Nevertheless, it seems a safe conjecture that 
certain of our forefathers of recent generations 
in the Western world would have seen in us a 
race of weedy, neurotic, inventive busybodies 
dependent, for our very existence, on manifold 
combinations of clangorous and evil-smelling 
machinery, and committed to the most fruit- 
lessly intricate devices in our social and polit- 
ical life. These would have welcomed the sight 
of the rare individuals amongst us in whom 



26 THE GKEAT EESOLVE 

were preserved the robustness of physique and 
simplicity of aim so common in their own day. 
Other of our forefathers, though not contemp- 
tuous of our physique, would probably have 
marvelled at the meagreness of our spiritual 
life ; still others would have been struck by our 
timidity in reasoning with ourselves or with one 
another and our naive reliance on unchallenged 
syllogisms. All, probably, on witnessing the 
battles now being fought in Europe, would at 
once have suspected that this could not have 
been a people's war in its origin inasmuch as a 
struggle of such proportions, if precipitated by 
a generation so peaceably materialistic, would 
have amounted to a gigantic and unthinkable 
affectation. 

Similarly, we of today — could the life of a 
distant generation of the future be suddenly 
discovered to us, as in a theatre — should doubt- 
less find repellent traits in our posterity. But 
we may always hope that such traits would be 
few and, from generation to generation, more 
satisfactorily explicable; for the measure of 
progress, on the one hand, or of decadence, on 
the other, can never be a comparison with the 
past, since the past may not be altered, resus- 
citated, or adequately comprehended. The 



PATKIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION 27 

measure of progress or of decadence in any 
day, year, century, or millennium, is the ratio 
between the sum of those things which are ur- 
gently and obviously demanding to be done at 
the beginning of such day, year, century, or 
millennium, and the portion of those same 
things which are forthwith set in process of 
being done and continued in that process 
throughout each remaining portion of the 
period in question. 

When scientists and historians are both pre- 
pared and permitted to teach the growing mind 
that we cannot be reasonably certain of the sig- 
nificance of any event in the past — when, con- 
sequently, the study of the future may be taken 
up in a methodical manner — it will be unnec- 
essary either to exalt or to disparage the stri- 
king figures in history and, incidentally, a great 
deal of unprofitable recrimination may be dis- 
pensed with. The methodical study of the 
future, to be sure, is confined to negative propo- 
sitions from which only the most general posi- 
tive inferences may be drawn; but its conclu- 
sions possess the advantage of certainty which 
is denied to our concrete considerations of the 
past. Let us briefly notice the limitations of our 
study of both past and future, as applied to the 
case of patriotism. 



28 THE GREAT RESOLVE 

If you try to batter to pieces any idol boast- 
ing the respectable antiquity of Patriotism, you 
are at once asked, even by the most friendly 
onlookers, what you propose to set up in its 
place. You may smile as much as you like at 
the audacity with which, by implication, you are 
being credited; it remains a serious matter 
nevertheless. For our history lessons have ut- 
terly failed to dispel the illusion that every 
proper iconoclast should have a program of 
reconstruction in his pocket, — one, too, that 
will really work. It is apparently to no purpose 
that we have seen the precepts and prophecies 
of all political and religious reformers of both 
ancient and modern times perverted and falsi- 
fied from the very date of their utterance. And 
perhaps, indeed, this lesson will itself be falsi- 
fied, since the lessons of history are dubious at 
the best. Some day, perhaps, an iconoclast will 
actually reconstruct. 

But the case here in question lies partly 
within the domain of logic. Premising the lim- 
its of the best human knowledge, we should 
readily admit that the more specific is any con- 
struction of the future, the less exact will be the 
forecast ; that only in its most general aspects 
may the future be forecast with any approach 



PATKIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION" 29 

to absolute certainty. Which should mean that 
he who pulls down is very unlikely to build up, 
or that, if he has indeed a hand in the upbuild- 
ing, this process will be of a different character 
from any he may have had in mind. Intelligent 
destruction is as much as may be reasonably 
expected of any reformer. 

Just how the daily life and yearly reckonings 
of the race would be affected by a rapid and 
considerable weakening of the clan-spirit may 
not be described. Only general statements are 
possible. The spirit of the clan will eventually 
give place to a more rational egoism or — what 
comes to the same thing — to a more scientific 
and comprehensive altruism. 

Meanwhile, be it observed, idol-smashing is a 
big word to be applied to any project under- 
taken against so venerable an institution as 
patriotism; idols of this kind are seldom to be 
disposed of by a single impetuous assault. At 
any moment, to be sure, they may fall of their 
own weight or faulty construction; or, on the 
other hand, they may crumble almost impercep- 
tibly. Whichever may be the case of patriotism, 
the actual spectacle will perhaps be full of bit- 
terness and sorrowful beyond words. It may 



30 THE GEEAT KESOLVE 

be accompanied by the most odious by-play; 
greed and all manner of unworthy pretences 
may figure among the disintegrating elements ; 
much of the earth's nobility and simplicity of 
soul may perish in the ruins. For it is every- 
where understood that ' ^ Long live the King ! ' ' 
has been shouted with a generous fervour that 
has removed all rancour from the heart, left no 
slightest stain in the memory and afforded a 
blessed comfort to the dying and the bereaved. 
Besides, can we of today pretend that we should 
like to see Frenchmen cease to be Frenchmen, 
or Englishmen being split up into groups by a 
central-universal committee on ethnology? 
However deep and real our present grievance, 
— however urgent and inexorable, — it may not 
be denied that the love of country has inspired 
splendid achievements ; verily, he who purposes 
taking a hack at our good old idol shall not do 
it with a light heart. 

But is it easy today to win to light-hearted- 
ness on any terms! Some few at the battle- 
front — some few, stocking their granaries very 
far from the same front — may achieve, or suc- 
cessfully counterfeit, this miracle. To any who 
are leading a tolerably normal life, learning 
what they may of the conditions of the great 



PATKIOTISM AND DEVOLUTION 31 

conflict, and keeping a decent faith in their 
power of independent judgment, it should be 
clear that we are all confronting a crucial prob- 
lem, the solution of which, according to any 
tried method, means inevitably an age of dark- 
ness to follow. The saying that democracy is 
at stake is a ridiculously inadequate statement 
of the crisis. For the world might worry along 
pretty comfortably without democracy, but it 
cannot manage at all if the preposterous fashion 
of stabbing in the back is to be sustained. Rad- 
ical measures are necessary, the like of which 
have not been seen before. Neighbour, if you Ve 
no less than the ordinary ambition to provide a 
decent heritage for your children and your 
children 's children, it is most emphatically your 
business, now and henceforward, to look into 
your heart and cudgel your brains till you dis- 
cover the means to this end that are rational, — 
the means that have a chance of success. If, in 
the process, certain of your ideals become liable 
to discredit, it is still your business to ask your- 
self honestly how best you may help to bring 
good out of that which seems but a choice of 
evils. If you fail, no shift will serve when re- 
tribution is here and hammering on your door. 



The Solution 

Why should patriotism, for the purposes of 
this essay, have been singled out from all human 
concerns to be consigned so logically to perdi- 
tion? Supposing we manage to elevate our 
standard of culture or to maintain it, as we say, 
upon its actual plane, not patriotism alone but 
any other of our present concerns, as well, may 
be eliminated from the future by precisely the 
same process. In accordance with the cardinal 
principle of our existence — which is likewise 
the single principle of all Nature, and which has 
here been defined as the abhorrence of similari- 
ties and repetitions — that which is must go, 
from the greed of gold to the fashion in hats. 
Why, then, patriotism to the fore! 

Because, on the one hand, it is amongst the 
most transparent of our illusions. At times, re- 
cently, it has seemed of an extreme tenuity, like 
the walls of a bubble; and no one can be cer- 
tain that its prismatic splendour of the moment 
is not ominous of collapse. The comparison is 
perhaps extravagant, — unlikely to be justified. 

32 



THE SOLUTION 33 

Yet a weakening of insnlar prepossessions 
under the normal conditions of peace has not 
only been observed and repeatedly commented 
on but has long been deducible as a certain con- 
sequence of the rapidly growing freedom of in- 
tercourse between people of different race. 

On the other hand, though national pride is 
by no means the sole cause of war, the indisput- 
able fact remains that an appalling proportion 
of the most valuable men in Europe are at pres- 
ent entirely given over to the business of des- 
troying one another who, but for this same 
pride, could never be herded together for any 
such purpose. In general, — as we have seen, 
— patriotism, though never the sole cause of 
any war, is the one factor which invariably ap- 
pears in the causation of wars and, by the mere 
fact of its continued occupancy of a prominent 
place in men's thought, makes further wars in- 
evitable. There it lies, ready-to-hand for the 
quarrelsome purposes of any clique, however 
small, that is suitably placed for turning it to 
account. In this sense, patriotism means war. 

THE ESSENCE OF WAR 

It seems difficult to exaggerate the force of 
this indictment. If war be defended as a 



34 THE GREAT EESOLVE 

strengtliener and rejuvenator of the race, it 
must be shown for what uses it has ever proved 
or is ever likely to prove such a strengthener 
and rejuvenator. Not for the uses of peace, 
would doubtless be the verdict of history as 
read by impartial eyes. If for the uses of war, 
not merely, then, is war desirable but peace is 
undesirable and lo ! we are fairly launched on 
the devolutionary tide. No doubt, the earth is 
sadly overpopulated ; and, at the present stage 
of the science of eugenics, it would seem wise to 
make it easier for people to die rather than 
more difficult for them to get born. But war it- 
self is such a cruel and unscientific method of 
decimation as to require, for its defence, argu- 
ments far stronger than any that have, as yet, 
been brought forward. For that matter, there 
is some reason to believe that the advocates of 
war as a racial tonic are already fearing an 
overdose of this most drastic medicine. 

At the same time, and apart from these dubi- 
ous doctrinaires, there exists a tendency, almost 
fashionable, to represent war as an inevitable, 
and not altogether undesirable, feature of our 
civilisation. There is nothing surprising in this 
phase of opinion, in so far as it may be derived 
from a more or less restricted consideration of 



THE SOLUTION 35 



Ufe in Europe today. For, indeed, those who 
are already, and excusably, weary of the formu- 
las with which war is being decried may find 
much to attract them to the opposite point of 
view. For one thing, they may be struck with 
the fact that a great majority of the combatants 
are now so inured to the business of strenuous 
fighting as to take it pretty much as a matter of 
course. For another, they see a little army of 
erstwhile idlers now aroused to a sense of re- 
sponsibility; luxurious women, too, performmg 
menial services and earning gratitude. To add 
to these phenomena manifold deeds of valour 
and material sacrifice is to demonstrate beyond 
a shadow of doubt that there is a bright side to 
war. And similarly, there is a bright side to 
every age of darkness; again and again, when 
humanity was exceedingly oppressed, remark- 
able talents have been brought to light which, 
otherwise, would certainly have remained hid- 
den. Hence arises the question, Does the in- 
most, inscrutable soul of this present age of 
science and democracy believe that no effort 
should be made to avert great tribulations, 
since herein lies, at least, a momentary salva- 
tion? One answer — of a didactic nature — 
would be that, if tribulations are required, peace 



36 THE GREAT RESOLVE 

may provide thereof as generously as war, if 
not so strikingly. As to the possibility of the 
tribulations of war mitigating the tribulations 
of peace, — let us consider the question. 

Those who declare war to be one of the nor- 
mal states of man always proceed to consider the 
sum of its activities as a preparative for peace. 
Those who speak of the normal occupations of 
peace never represent the sum of these occupa- 
tions as a preparative for war. Doubtless war 
is indeed a normal state of certain men, even as 
the inverted position, head downward from a 
trapeze, is a normal state of certain others, or 
narcotic intoxication of still others. But the 
normality of either of these last two states must 
be more real than that of war because of its 
selective quality; one may generally take it or 
leave it, according to one's natural bent, whilst, 
in the case of war, there is often no choice. 

That war, however, is generally an abnormal 
state of man has been practically demonstrated 
in many phases of the present European con- 
flict: for example, in the reluctance of conva- 
lescent soldiers to return to the front; also in 
the hysteria, nervous breakdown, and insanity 
that so frequently resulted from the earliest 
clashes in 1914. The survivors of this ordeal 



THE SOLUTION 37 

became hardened eventually to a life which 
contained few interests outside of the enemy 
and the means of destroying him — and the 
daily provision of food. In most places the 
routine and the physical conditions of existence 
were healthful and the men suffered no more in 
this respect than any non-combatant who has 
become accustomed to some other kind of nerv- 
ous strain that is both abnormal and ephemeral. 
But there is no evidence from which one may 
conclude that the initial crisis of nerves — the 
battle-sickness in all ranks and all races — was 
the real anachronism of the day rather than 
war itself; far less, that it proceeded from a 
growing torpor or effeminacy that might be ex- 
tirpated only by pitting the races against one 
another in a fight to the finish. 

And finally, when peace comes, what is to be 
expected of the disbanded armies and of those 
who have ministered to them! Have we ob- 
served, in the past, that successful generals were 
less likely to be spoiled by adulation than the 
famous men of peace, or that old soldiers gen- 
erally were an especially sober-minded type of 
citizen, or that the sybarite who had sacrificed 
his ease for the chance of adventure or out of 
devotix)n to his country's cause derived from the 



38 THE GEEAT KESOLVE 

novel experience a greater aptitude for serious 
pursuits 1 

Whatever history may say, — and have we 
really heard the demur of history? — there is 
no logical ground for denying that war must, 
on the whole, impair the efficiency of a people 
for the uses of peace. And herein lies a pitiful 
irony. The average patriot is a useful man in 
time of peace; the average skulker is not. In 
war, the average patriot has a good chance of 
getting killed or severely maimed whilst the 
average skulker has not only an excellent 
chance of coming off with a whole skin but a 
better chance than ever of becoming a person 
of influence in his community. And what of the 
surviving patriot? Is he likely to prove a better 
husband, a better father, a better worker in the 
routine of peace for the memory of those in- 
tensest hours of his existence when he must view 
with unconcern the spectacle of ruined homes 
and mangled comrades in order to press for- 
ward to effectual retribution? For my own part, 
let me confess that a month in the trenches 
would doubtless suffice to fill me with that queer 
jumble of fear, hatred, weariness, scientific 
expertise, Quixotism and careless devotion of 
which one has lately heard so much, and to 



THE SOLUTION 39 

make me regard as utter balderdash any such, 
discussion of patriotism as I have undertaken 
in these pages. I might loathe the war; I 
might long ardently for peace, yet, once it were 
attained, I should be fortunate indeed if I could 
resist the obsession of my warlike days and ad- 
mit that they were lived abnormally, undesir- 
ably so, and in the very shadow of devolution. 

One thing more, as to the trench-fighting, — 
a circumstance not altogether relished even by 
those who are generally most responsive to the 
theatrical aspect of war: the ferocity, to wit, 
of man. 

That a primitive ferocity lingers inherent in 
man and may be brought to the surface by ap- 
plication of the appropriate stimulus, is being 
daily demonstrated on the battle-fields of Eu- 
rope, where the ghastliest hurts are painless if 
the lust of slaughter has, for the moment, been 
thoroughly aroused ; also, it is deemed prudent, 
wherever possible, to allow the wounded partici- 
pant in yesterday's bayonet-encounter to com- 
plete his convalescence within the sound of fir- 
ing, since his morale may be impaired by re- 
moval to more peaceful surroundings. At the 
same time, it is incredible — if we are to put 
any faith in history — that the thirst of blood 



40 THE GREAT EESOLVE 

has liad anything to do with the inception of 
any war of modern times. Those persons, espe- 
cially, who determined the precise moment when 
the present war should begin, could have had no 
selfish desire to gratify this elemental passion 
because it was highly unlikely that any but a 
very few of them would ever have the oppor- 
tunity to do this. Here, at least, was no fling- 
back to the impulses of our clawing and biting 
ancestors. And as to the mass of the popula- 
tions then precipitated into a struggle in which 
their inborn ferocity — that hitherto unnoticed 
companion of patriotic aspirations — might be 
brought into active operation, one may speak 
still more decisively. Leaving out of account 
the unsuspected and extreme brutality of en- 
counters with bayonet, pistol and hand-grenade, 
one may confidently assert that the reservists 
of 1914, generally, were neither eager for a fight 
of any kind nor in the least likely to become so 
if the existing state of peace had been indefi- 
nitely prolonged. Whoever now believes the 
contrary was either not in Europe during the 
early mobilisations or was probably misin- 
formed as to the general temper of the peoples 
thus engaged. 

The truth is that not ferocity alone but a host 



THE SOLUTION 41 

of other curious propensities, as well, lie hidden 
in the inmost soul of man ; and many of these, 
henceforward, may seldom, or even never, see 
the light of day. No doubt, for example, the 
bulk of the race could be converted into drug- 
fiends, sun-worshippers, or self-scourging fa- 
natics if there existed, for the purpose, a ma- 
chinery comparable to the engines of diplomacy 
and patriotic eloquence for producing war ; but 
to argue that those forms of courage bearing a 
close relationship to the lust of slaughter are 
still entitled to a survival value in the evolution 
of the race is to forget that the race would 
probably be in a most perilous position today 
but for its continued production of individuals 
in whom the fighting spirit is as far as possible 
removed from the variety prevailing in the 
trenches. Amongst those whose ancestors, for 
many generations, have never been in the thick 
of battle and who, themselves, reveal the most 
striking disqualifications for warlike pursuits, 
are heads of states, pioneers in learning, artists 
possessing a creative faculty, — without whom, 
by the way, we could not exist at all, — and 
reformers of religion. 

Wlien the impossibility of further wars is 
finallv demonstrated, the inherent pugnacity in 



42 THE GKEAT EESOLVE 

man will be manifested in very different kinds 
of combat from that kind which is now engag- 
ing everybody's attention, — and doubtless 
without detriment to the race. Quarrels ex- 
ceeding the scope of two pairs of fists may be 
settled in a gladiatorial arena from which the 
public and all reporters are excluded. There 
being no onlookers but the police and a dispas- 
sionate umpire, we may discover the sheer, un- 
stimulated pugnacity in all tolerably normal 
combatants to be remarkably little (less, prob- 
ably, than appears in the average ring-fighter 
of today) and so be forced to refer the greater 
part of that which has hitherto passed under 
this name to the general need of self-assertion 
— that desire to excel which, at one time, leads 
to the subtlest of rivalries ; again, brings quick 
tempers afoul of one another; and again, as at 
present, is utilised by blindfold ambitions to 
reduce whole continents to a state of prepos- 
terous havoc. 

WHO IS KESPONSIBLE? 

Now, apart from the marching and fighting 
of armies, what kind of spectacle has been pre- 
sented to the non-partisan onlooker during the 
past twenty months? 



THE SOLUTION 43 

About the middle of July, 1914, only one na- 
tion of the earth, probably, was making any 
special preparations for war. Yet all nations 
were suffering from internal disorders each of 
which, in accordance with the tribal system of 
humanity, was different from that which pre- 
vailed across the nearest border. In the United 
States of America, for example, a considerable 
proportion of the population were either look- 
ing for a job or wondering how they should pay 
their office-rent or seeking to prevent their in- 
comes from dwindling to impossible dimensions, 
— all of which endeavours were, in the main, 
quite barren of result. England, meanwhile, 
was rushing to the verge of civil war; France, 
groaning under the burden of political corrup- 
tion. Germany presented a fairer outward 
aspect, but it was known that many children 
were not happy there. Such was the rather 
dubious felicity bequeathed to these four peo- 
ples, with or without their consent, by their 
heroic ancestors, — wherein is nothing strange, 
since the said ancestors themselves were seldom 
without a superfluous thorn in the side. An un- 
usually prodigious number of people were say- 
ing, Human nature is like this — How can you 
help it? — You can't expect us to be perfect. 



44 THE GKEAT KESOLVE 

Yet, when all was ready — erratic statesman- 
ship and clumsy diplomacy attuned to just the 
proper pitch — and declarations of war re- 
sounded hither and thither like automatic thun- 
der, the response from all populations, neutral 
and belligerent alike, was a high-strung wail of 
astonishment and horror: the affair was too 
big, altogether incredible. In other words, what 
Europe had long been waiting for — what Eu- 
rope had the most convincing reasons to expect 
— proved, on its realisation under conditions of 
modern science and organisation, too tough a 
morsel for the modern digestion. There ensued, 
accordingly, a spirited contest of platitudes 
concerning the question of responsibility, in 
which generals and journalists, seasoned min- 
isters and budding jurists all had a share. Each 
side accused the other of having failed, or been 
about to fail, to observe the rules of the game 
until, presently, it was discovered that there 
had never been any rules for the game that 
might not be ignored by either player upon the 
development of new conditions of play. The 
mythical character of international law having 
thus received a practical demonstration, it was 
decided to resort to blazonry. Two splendid 
banners were unfurled, one bearing the device, 



THE SOLUTION 45 

Humanity, the other, Culture, and the one was 
championed against the other. A feeble under- 
current of rhetoric, too, was always kept in 
motion for the benefit of that portion of the non- 
combatant populations which required the as- 
surance of a real grievance. Meanwhile, the 
United States of America and other favourably 
situated neutrals, lulled by the mere lapse of 
time to a false sense of security, have entered 
upon the perfectly futile business of turning the 
conflict to practical account. Fondly unsuspect- 
ing that the proceeds of this operation will inev- 
itably return to the coffers of those peoples who 
will stand in more urgent need of them, they 
have built up a factitious and one-sided prosper- 
ity which they are powerless to protect, since 
it availeth little to save the pieces of a crashing 
law. They may not even protect the lives or 
property of their citizens on the seas ; they are 
naturally averse to adding more precious fuel 
to the flame of war; so here they stick, facing 
the future with a bovine stare and chewing the 
hope that they may one day appear resplendent 
in the role of mediator and earn the gratitude 
of all mankind. 

Where the real responsibility lies should be 
clear to anyone who may forget most of that 



46 THE GREAT EE SOLVE 

which has been dinned into his ears and give 
the bare facts a little serious thought. Let me. 
confess that, with respect to the mythical prin- 
ciples of international law and to the equally 
unsatisfactory principles of fair play and hu- 
mane dealing in Hell, I, too, have an opinion as 
to who are the greatest sinners in the present 
conflict. But nothing would induce me to ex- 
press this opinion in the course of a serious dis- 
cussion, both the opinion and its basis in fact 
being of absurdly small importance in relation 
to the real peril that lowers over the earth. Nor 
is there any need to say how ungrateful is the 
task of trying to prove everybody intensely 
wrong; for, of all moments suitable for this 
purpose, the present is so singularly and bril- 
liantly auspicious that it should certainly not be 
allowed to pass. For, until 1914, only a few 
persons knew that nations were essentially im- 
moral, whilst henceforward no one may expect 
that any kind of morality such as we associate 
with individuals will ever be found in nations 
constructed as are the present nations of the 
earth, except in affairs of small importance. 
Thus, the theory that Europe has been set upon 
by a small party of powerful bandits and that, 
if these bandits are finally suppressed and made 



THE SOLUTION 47 

an example of before all mankind, the old re- 
gime of nations may resume its peaceful sway, 
each contributing to the excellences of the 
others, is no longer to be supported by any who 
can do just a little better than repeat what has 
reached their ears from an authoritative source. 
To attempt the imposition of impossible restric- 
tions on one weaker nation and then to invade 
another whose neutrality you have guaranteed 
is by no means the only way of becoming re- 
sponsible for the war that follows. Snubbing a 
monarch is another way ; still another is taking 
possession, by more or less legitimate means 
mythically, of a greater portion of the unde- 
fended territory of the earth than is indispen- 
sable for your immediate needs. Mere growth 
is sufficient. The nation that expands, even in 
the most peaceable known manner, invites at- 
tack and has no cause for resentment in adver- 
sity. In the case of the present war, the respon- 
sibility of the United States of America and of 
certain other neutral nations, when pragmatic- 
ally considered, is double, for they have not 
suffered, in any considerable degree, from the 
collapse of the system at which they have con- 
nived. The American tradition of avoidance of 
foreign alliances only adds to the measure of 



48 THE GREAT RESOLVE 

American responsibility. Moreover, transpar- 
ent as this policy has always been, — yet a sub- 
ject of rhetorical eloquence, even this ! — it is 
now threatened with summary abandonment 
since, upon any conceivable settlement of the 
European conflict in accordance with the usage 
of nations, America will be fairly reaching out 
for alliances. Let us consider the implications 
of this kind of settlement. 

GERMANY VICTORIOUS 

If Germany should win the war and seem in 
a fair way to conquer the earth, we who are not 
Germans should dispute with her every inch of 
the ground. Leaving out of account the highly 
probable defection of her present allies as soon 
as they should learn the price of victory, we 
others might be subjugated again and again; 
just as often should we rebel. For we could not, 
on any terms, consent to the German culture 
being imposed on us by force. Much as we may 
admire it in certain respects, in other respects 
we should always tind ourselves disapproving 
and thoroughly satisfied with the reasons of our 
disapproval. Often as we may wish we were 
more like the Germans, it would be impossible 
for us to become entirely like them at their own 



THE SOLUTION 49 

bidding. The points of essential disagreement 
vary, of course, with the particular non-German 
people that may be under consideration, but the 
important ones are so well known as to require 
no mention here. It is enough to say that any 
superposition of German culture upon Gallic or 
Anglo-Saxon culture, or any process of equali- 
sation amongst the three, would have to be inau- 
gurated at the instance of the non-Germans as 
well as of the Germans. One final consequence 
of your efforts at conquest, Germany, would 
be disaster to yourself. But what of the process 
through which this result should be attained! 
An age of inky darkness, no less, lit with lurid, 
infernal flashes, — altogether a most devolu- 
tionary spectacle. 

ENGLAND VICTOEIOUS 

Given a victorious England, posing as the sa- 
viour of Europe, — a claim which many esti- 
mable Britons, missing the faces of their friends 
and conscious of a lean pocket, would be hon- 
estly incapable of calling in question, — the ul- 
terior sequence of events would be similar. Her 
late enemies must pay the costs — have they 
anyone but themselves to thank for their sad 
plight? — and, yet more, they must be bound. 



50 THE GKEAT EESOLVE 

hand and foot, that the normal vocations of 
mankind be no longer exposed to piratical ag- 
gression. The late enemies sign the peace on 
these terms, there being nothing else for them 
to do, but without the slightest intention of ful- 
filling either condition. Because — not that the 
signature matters in the least — neither condi- 
tion is capable of being fulfilled. As to the first, 
the most resourceful of vanquished peoples 
would be unable, within any reasonable period 
of time, to produce a tithe of the cost of the 
present war. As to the second, a nation cannot 
be bound, hand and foot ; no civilised people of 
ancient or modern times has ever been rendered 
impotent for mischief. 

What, then, shall England do for her friends 1 
To say nothing of the Balkan Peninsula, — 
where she will suddenly discover she has had a 
host of supporters, now asking a reward for 
their services, — the entente is quadruple and 
England may not stand alone. She is already 
owed vast sums and knows that debtors are not 
without their sensitive, fractious moods. In 
fine, everybody is scorched, and the balm that 
was in the cupboard has all been used for yes- 
terday's hurts. But here is where the neutrals 
should come in. America, for instance, has a 



THE SOLUTION 51 

canal, a Monroe Doctrine, some distant islands 
and a commerce overseas which is just on the 
point of blossoming into the prettiest of her 
products. She is, moreover, years behind the 
times and a perfect blockhead when confronted 
with the doctrine of changed conditions ; if she 
persist in blundering along in the footsteps of 
her fathers, she must be punished for getting in 
the way of less laggard folk and cramping their 
style. Behold her, then, — chaste seclusion un- 
speakably profaned, — waving a frantic hand 
across either sea for assistance in her predica- 
ment. 

Piecemeal plundering, or even cumulative 
menace, is not tolerated ; war is the only answer. 
And the interests involved in the settlement of 
the present conflict being nothing short of uni- 
versal, any settlement thereof which includes 
the imposition upon the vanquished of either a 
punitive fetter or a special material burden 
means inevitably a succession of new align- 
ments, not merely of reciprocally defiant pow- 
ers, but of reciprocally aggressive powers — 
chaos, to wit, answering to chaos until either 
degeneracy develops an irresistible momentum 
or the control of affairs devolves upon some 
such persons, hitherto practically negligible, as 



52 THE GEEAT KESOLVE 

one we have already been introduced to in this 
familiar conceit, — 

" Durch Mitleid wissend, 
Der reine Thor; 
Harre Sein 
Den Ich erkor.'' 

The situation is as full of irony as it is of 
peril; consider, by the same token, the people 
composing the nations of the quadruple entente. 
Englishmen, Frenchmen, Italians, Eussians, 
are capable, and have given evidence, of a real 
admiration for one another ; many of them have 
been educated, have married, formed friend- 
ships, within one another's borders; yet the 
notion of Eussia, Italy, France and England, 
weary and spent though they be on the day of 
final victory, combining to maintain peace upon 
Earth, showing a tolerably impartial consider- 
ation for one another's needs, and unitedly en- 
suring a square deal for outsiders is, upon any 
accepted theory of international arrangements, 
too preposterous to deserve a moment's serious 
thought. 

A DRAWN BATTLE 

But it may be that neither side will win a 
decisive victory. After a vast amount of bar- 



THE SOLUTION 53 

gaining and contention, the exhausted comba- 
tants may agree on something approaching the 
status quo ante as the most feasible liquidation 
of their quarrel. This arrangement, as expo- 
nents of both sides have so often admitted, 
would amount practically to a truce; and the 
work of preparation for future defence would 
be carried on with all possible vigour from the 
very day of the signing of peace. Certain of 
the neutral nations would be compelled to 
double the efforts of the late belligerents be- 
cause of the rearward position in which they 
would have entered the race. That which has 
already befallen Belgium, Greece, neutral ships, 
unarmed merchantmen, unfortified towns, would 
have sufficiently demonstrated the futility of 
further treaties and international conventions ; 
or, if proposals to these ends should actually 
be made, they must be for quite another pur- 
pose than the protection, by common agreement, 
of the supposed rights of any nation small or 
great, neutral or belligerent. Certain nations, 
to be sure, might always refuse to be as unscru- 
pulous as certain of their neighbours. In a 
democracy, for instance, qualmish citizens must 
be listened to. But all nations engaged in the 
present war have shown a readiness, when the 



54 THE GREAT EESOLVE 

situation was sufficiently critical, — that is, 
when the observance of ante-bellum agreements 
was especially obligatory and fraught with the 
weightiest significance, — to ignore both the 
letter and the spirit of these agreements. 

Disarmament, absolute or partial, would 
doubtless be recognised as a de\dce far too 
easily circumvented from its very inception on- 
ward. An international police to enforce dis- 
armament would be equally out of the question, 
since all captains possessing the requisite pres- 
tige and ability for commanding it would be 
suspected of partiality. In sum, an armed 
truce would seem, in the present case, the only 
possible outcome of a drawn battle. This might 
soon be broken or it might endure for an indef- 
inite period ; little knowledge and less imagina- 
tion should be sufficiently convincing that the 
race is neither sound enough to emerge in de- 
cent condition from another war of almost uni- 
versal dimensions nor industrious enough to 
maintain an effective martial safeguard against 
it. 

THE SOLUTION 

Is it conceivable that the war will be settled 
in accordance with some standard different 



THE SOLUTION 55 

from the usage of nations? In other words, is 
a real solution possible, — one carrying a prom- 
ise for the future? 

One such solution is indeed possible, — and 
only one. It is very obvious ; it has never be- 
fore been attempted; it involves a voluntary 
and pretty general act of renunciation. 

A tall order, this 1 Not likely, at any rate, to 
be filled, in proportionate part, by those of our 
acquaintance who are ever ready to prate of 
human foresight as limited by the tip of the 
human nose, and of human nature generally as 
a thing mostly weak and only a little bit strong, 
— thereby certifying that pessimism, from time 
to time and place to place, transcends all ra- 
tional bounds. But these persons may prove 
as impotent to thwart a just and sensible proj- 
ect as they are incapable of applying their devo- 
lutionary doctrines to the practical affairs of 
life. 

As for the rest of us, what is the incentive 
to combine for the purposes of such a novel 
enterprise! 

On the one hand we see disaster, — an age of 
darkness imminent. 

On the other hand — if the enterprise may 
but be given the needed impetus — lie an effec- 



56 THE GEEAT RESOLVE 

tive safeguard against any such contingency 
and an absolute guarantee that the war of 1914 
may never be imitated. 

Europe, being hopelessly at war, must come 
forgivingly to peace. 

Is Europe perhaps of a formidable bigness 
for taking such an unwonted decision, — and 
further swollen with resentment? 

All Europeans may be easily reached within 
a week if there is anything of importance to be 
said to them. And amongst an overwhelming 
majority of them the resentment is certainly but 
skin-deep or exists not at all. When the mas- 
ters of war and industry decide to forgive, the 
men, for once, will be eager to follow. There is 
but one thing needed, — a great resolve. If the 
outlook is stormy, therefore is it stimulating; 
if, for a millennium, we have been shamefaced 
of the virtue that was in us, the fruit, then, 
should be ripe ; if an ordeal is before us, to en- 
dure it is to acquire wisdom, — to have endured 
it with a tolerable fortitude will be to have be- 
queathed a measure of happiness and decent 
living. But if a great problem is before us, it is, 
at the same time, a problem of the simplest. 
There is one solution of it, and that one should 
be understood immediately by every man or 



THE SOLUTION" 57 

woman of the earth who has ever condoned a 
trespass. 

Here is the entire, brief program. The vic- 
tor must perform a voluntary act of abnegation 
— a refusal to accept the spoils of war or 
humble the beaten foe — so clear and unequiv- 
ocal as to silence all skeptics living and yet un- 
born. This means not merely the avoidance of 
such a tactical blunder as was the seizure of 
Alsace and Lorraine. It means an overt avowal 
of complicity in the late malfeasance, hence the 
erection of a solid precedent of justice that may 
be viewed and comprehended from every level 
of society. 

The same necessity applies to the case of a 
drawn battle : there must be no bargaining. 

The same necessity applies again to the neu- 
tral nations; and, in the case of those which 
have not suffered, the sacrifice must be doubled. 
Of money, the rich must give, if necessary, even 
unto one half of all they possessed; the poor 
might give pennies which would probably be 
returned to them. Not cash, alone, but active 
help, as well, must be forthcoming until more 
should be refused, a state as nearly as possible 
approaching equilibrium having been estab- 
lished. 



58 THE GKEAT KESOLVE 

It is obvious that, in every case, the consent 
of the people must be obtained; every dona- 
tion, even, might be voluntary; for a people 
may not be taxed in the traditional manner and 
on a large scale for novel purposes. 

Once the act of renunciation were performed, 
— and only then, — disarmament would follow, 
for it would thenceforth be impossible to enlist 
a population in the prosecution of any quarrel 
not with savages. Of the ulterior benefit here 
indicated, no more need be said in this connec- 
tion. Let us, however, notice some of the up- 
setting consequences of the supposed altruism 
of nations. 

EMBAEKASSMENTS 

The disbandment of armies would leave their 
officers, many of them otherwise untrained, 
without a vocation; manufacturers of muni- 
tions of war would find their stocks and facto- 
ries practically valueless. Universal free trade 
would be inevitable to the benefit of certain in- 
dustries and to the acute, temporary disadvan- 
tage of others. Mills of many different kinds 
in certain regions would be forced to close, 
causing great numbers of workmen, skilled and 
unskilled, to become, for a space, a burden on 



THE SOLUTION 59 

their communities. This contingency wonld 
probably develop a spirit of free trade in human 
material, as well, leading to a more or less 
thorough redistribution of the industrial popu- 
lation throughout the earth and causing initial 
losses in connection with equipment and organ- 
isation. Many retired persons of both sexes 
would be startled at the sudden disappearance 
of their incomes; others would see theirs sur- 
prisingly augmented. In sum, the world of 
business and finance would be pretty rudely 
thrown out of kelter and would have to search 
diligently for several new starting-points; 
meanwhile charity would, for a while, become 
more of a career than it is even today, and the 
receiver of alms would cast his old garments of 
bitterness and pride and appear in fashionable 
raiment. 

In this picture of distress and embarrass- 
ment during the readjustment of affairs, or in 
any more lurid variant thereof that may sug- 
gest itself, is there anything really resembling 
chaos, — confusion poignant and without rem- 
edy? Are we not here contemplating, on a 
somewhat enlarged scale, a scene that is already 
familiar to the greater portion of mankind and 
has never included a tithe of the misery actually 



60 THE GREAT RESOLVE 

saddled upon the earth this day? Is any cyn- 
ical financier or manufacturer likewise so ava- 
ricious and shortsighted as — rather ^than con- 
secrate a portion of his wealth to an altruistic 
and practically remunerative enterprise — to 
conspire against himself to the extent of in- 
viting strangers to relieve him of his all ! And 
finally, is anyone blind to the significance of 
nations actually practising, not magnanimity 
— let us, at any cost, steer clear of rhetoric — 
but justice, and to the powerful incentive 
thereby supplied to individuals and associations 
of individuals to lend strenuous arms and right 
the rolling ship! '' But where do I come in? " 
is a cry that might be heard pretty frequently 
for the space of a few weeks, at the most. 

All thoughtful people are doubtless aware 
that the least hitch in the working of a novel 
program is regarded by many as a final demon- 
stration of the unsoundness of the program and 
is generally greeted with as many shouts of pro- 
test and execration as are brought forth by 
positive calamities resulting from an adhesion 
to traditional usage. It is only when the calam- 
ity is excessively dire and when even direr are 
being actively plotted for the future, that rea- 
sonable tolerance may be expected for the im- 



THE SOLUTION 61 

perfections of any scheme involving a consid- 
erable dislocation of the grooves of human ac- 
tivity. This is the case of today. 

Once the process of re-adjustment were com- 
plete and our one notable gain incorporated in 
common speech and memory, we should, in other 
respects, get on at least as well as before and 
probably a great deal better. Certain problems, 
however, might remain as tough as ever. Let 
one of these be mentioned forthwith, partly by 
way of confession to an earlier inaccuracy in 
these pages which might not easily be explained 
at the moment. To say that a solid precedent 
of justice may be reared which will be viewed 
and comprehended from every level of society 
is to say what is not true. For there exist 
amongst us certain pitiable monsters who are 
constitutionally incapable of accounting for any 
just or generous act and have therefore no 
choice but to deny that any such act is possible. 
Others, through early training or later associa- 
tions, become so like unto these that any prac- 
tical distinction between the two may hardly 
be established. Not criminals, especially, in the 
eye of the law, are here indicated ; probably the 
vast majority of thieves and murderers are by 
no means of this degree of moral depravity 



62 THE GEEAT EESOLVE 

which, for that matter, is met with in every sit- 
uation of life, — now clad in expensive furs and 
ministered to by a retinue of servants, and again 
miserably congested in the slums of a great city. 
The simplicity of nations could have but little 
meaning for these unfortunates; and, until 
somebody should discover a better method, we 
must cope with them in some such manner as 
in the past. Fortunately, they are not a numer- 
ous class and have seldom acquired a consider- 
able influence in our affairs. 

But to the solution of the majority of social 
and economical problems we should be able to 
devote more time, a better class of brains and 
a freer spirit of inquiry than while labouring 
constrainedly under the prejudice of an inflated 
national life. 

THE FIKST STEP 

After all, in this business, as in so many 
others, the first step is the crucial one; it de- 
mands nerve, resolution and a cool head. Those 
who advocate it should be possessed of author- 
ity and prestige; which means, they will be 
subject to all the embarrassments of an estab- 
lished record. First to confront them will be 
the financier and the capitalist, seeing the whole 



THE SOLUTION 63 

big world in their smaller concerns and bred to 
a blind faith in the effective guardianship of the 
law. These will be supported by the statistician 
bringing a bagful of premises for the false 
inferences of a materialistic age. Derisive 
cynics from all walks of life will be much in 
evidence with a jingle of hackneyed aphorisms ; 
earnest citizens will naively beseech us to per- 
form the superhuman feat of seeing things as 
they really are. And the most measured of all 
protestant voices will be that of the conserva- 
tive statesman. This conscientious person has 
always been seated in uneasy majesty on the 
bank of the river of life. Exposed incessantly 
to the dust-whirls of diplomacy and the chilling 
blasts of parliamentary eloquence, he has never 
dared try if the water be warm and clean; 
hence, in the present instance, he is certain to 
pronounce in well-considered, frosty periods to 
the effect that not only is any solidarity of na- 
tions deriving so remotely from self-interest 
impossible of realisation but any efforts to this 
end would open up vistas of endless mischief, 
etc., etc. To face him with the alternative were 
to precipitate a discussion of the lessons of his- 
tory. On his chosen ground, which he sorrow- 
fully declines to abandon, he is perfectly unan- 



64 THE GREAT EESOLVE 

swerable, and the only sensible thing to do is to 
leave him alone. He will be negligible anyhow, 
if true insight shall have begotten a will to win. 
If such prove indeed to be the case, there 
need be no further waiting. It should be easy 
to bring the sleekest of stay-at-homes to a reali- 
sation, not merely verbal, of the significance of 
thirty million of the best men of the race hav- 
ing each a hand at one or other of the thirty 
million throats. As for these armies them- 
selves, no doubt can exist but they would aban- 
don the struggle at a moment's notice, even if 
given no better than the traditional assurances 
as to the future. Yet, within their ranks, 
weekly, tens of thousands succumb. And how 
many cowards are there ! Precious few, we are 
told, at any battle-front. Valour seems indeed 
a terrible thing, highly infectious in one cause 
or another. But has anyone the pluck to stand 
forth and stay its overbrimming rage? A few 
determined men, capable of a great resolve, are 
the one and imperative need of the time, and 
for all time. 

IMPERFECTLY RENOVATED 

Not many, be it hoped, among those dismal 
experts in the dissection of human nature are 



THE SOLUTION 65 

nursing the delusion that, if we were successful 
in making war impossible, we should be almost 
too good to be real. On the contrary, to escape 
from martial preoccupations through conscious 
efforts of our own would be to bring into 
stronger relief certain far tougher problems of 
our social and industrial life; any cherubic 
countenance appearing incontinent in our midst 
would rapidly be creased with care. It is not 
within the scope of this essay to discuss the 
social or industrial conditions prevailing in sep- 
arate communities nor even to mention the 
problems connected therewith, except in so far 
as an analogy may be perceived between them 
and the problem of international usage. When 
a nation exacts indemnity, levies tribute, im- 
poses restrictions, or attempts subjugation be- 
yond its own borders, it does indeed suggest a 
parallel between its own procedure and that of 
the communities which go to make it up. It 
thereby exhibits the same restless propensity 
to jump at such conclusions as are readily ex- 
pressible in language — hence, the same pro- 
found ineptitude for safeguarding its own best 
interests — that is manifested within its bor- 
ders in the results of all manner of collective 
enterprise, such as laws, political and charita- 



66 THE GREAT EESOLVE 

ble ideals, and public opinion variously crystal- 
lised. Here are two syllogisms typical of the 
kind that were snapped up by our impulsive 
forebears to the exceeding detriment of their 
posterity's digestion. 

Punish the thief, and others will think twice 
before stealing. 

Protect not only the drunkard's family and 
their neighbours but even the drunkard from 
himself, thereby scoring a victory for reform 
that shall prove an inspiration for all sinners. 

In the one case, the inflammable imaginations 
of the young, of the feeble-minded and of 
cramped adventurers are left out of account; 
in the other, the possible influence upon the race 
of sustaining the drunkard through generation 
upon generation suffers a similar fate. 

But for the fact that present satisfaction, all 
else being equal, is generally suspected of con- 
taining a snare, we of the Western world should 
probably recognise the things that may really 
make for happiness in a community as being — 
next to the life of the family, which, under all 
circumstances, occupies the first place — the 
right to work, play, speak and earn an honest 
wage without prejudice or vexatious restric- 
tions; the social glass; a penny in the old 



THE SOLUTION 67 

man's hat; the dollar lent ungrudgingly; a 
helping hand to the wife in a throng; a kind 
word to the erring daughter; tolerance unre- 
served for the bastard ; civil and dispassionate 
consideration for the thief. Even as we know 
in our hearts that we have, none of us, the 
shadow of a right to sit in judgment on the 
adulteress or the thief, so have our pitiful little 
prophylactic devices of ostracism and imprison- 
ment been frustrated throughout the ages. Has 
it ever indeed been proved that they sometimes 
really deter? Unhappily, there were no statis- 
ticians at the time when organised intimidation 
was first thought of. Some forgotten genius of 
antiquity said, ^' Of course they will deter; 
why, man, it's obvious ! " — and everybody was 
thenceforth too busy with general felicitations 
over the extreme ingenuity of the contrivance 
to observe if there were any sensible change in 
the sum of evil-doing. 

In our own day, the deterrent force of threat- 
ened punishment is doubtless felt strongly by 
those whose only- crimes are not mentioned in 
the penal statutes; but the tremendous incen- 
tive to recognised crime provided by this same 
device — especially the fatal attraction of the 
death-penalty and of a possible escape there- 



68 THE GREAT EESOLVE 

from — lias probably never received full justice 
at the bands of psychologists and practical 
criminologists. As a makeshift — a choice be- 
tween two supposed evils — it is undoubtedly 
a failure ; but, as a cardinal principle of civili- 
sation, to be upheld brazenly, even rhetorically, 
it is the kind of monstrosity which, so long as 
it may endure, will prevent honest and thought- 
ful men from contributing anything to social re- 
form. Here is no need to depict the jubilation 
of downtrodden malefactors, if the police should 
become suddenly a mere restraining influence, 
— nor the momentary increase of crimes and 
misdemeanours by hundreds per cent, followed 
by a swifter decline of the same to unheard-of 
low levels when it should transpire that the 
prey were as children and the law no longer an 
enemy, — because the right to punish will not 
be renounced by a single stroke of the pen. 

But it cannot endure forever. The time will 
come, barring devolution, when from every 
pulpit will be preached the doctrine. Do unto 
your neighbour — not merely as you would 
have him do unto yourself, but — as you would 
soberly like to do unto him. When that time 
comes, practically no incentive to what we now 
call crime will remain; murder and rape will 



THE SOLUTION 69 

be but the dreams of madmen lacking an oppor- 
tunity; it will be possible to ridicule the thief 
and the adulteress instead of making them the 
cynosure of morbid eyes; the drunkard will 
have the choice between, on the one hand, elim- 
inating himself from the race by the obvious, 
painless and scientific method of alcoholism 
persevered in and, on the other, re-instating 
himself in efficiency by the exhilarating effort 
of his own will and intelligence ; any lineage for 
whom other forms of present satisfaction con- 
tain indeed a dangerous snare will, similarly, 
either lose influence in our affairs up to the 
point where they may no longer perpetuate 
their kind, or else will clear the snare forever 
from their path; the greater part of human 
drudgery will be over by midday ; etc., etc. — 
and we shall then be all the better prepared to 
attack the really difficult problems of existence. 
Meanwhile the nations are, in the above re- 
spects, still behaving toward one another very 
much as their citizens are encouraged recipro- 
cally to do ; but the consequences of united mis- 
behaviour are at present so staggeringly obvi- 
ous as to draw speech even from those who are 
habitually silent. How, indeed, is it possible to 
hold one's tongue? WeVe a good country for 



70 THE GKEAT RESOLVE 

our habitation which is by way of being con- 
verted into a wilderness. Water is plentiful, 
no less than the river of life, itself. Its mur- 
mur is grateful to the ear ; the play of its waves 
is an inexhaustible delight to the eye; it 
abounds in pleasant little creatures enjoying a 
heyday. But we may not use it on our lands 
because the authorities have declared it impure 
and posted watchmen along the banks. Here 
and there, a renegade plunges boldly in, drinks 
and is refreshed; but his annoyance, on being 
fished bodily out, stamps the experience as an 
unwholesome one. Now and then, the problem 
of sanitation is officially considered, but nobody 
has ever been able to discover the contaminating 
source. Meanwhile, what of the precious 
stream, itself ; if the appointed guardians of the 
valley, grown fearful of darkness and shadows, 
decide to level the primeval forest, how shall it 
be replenished? From the ocean of the uni- 
verse, perhaps ; but only the coast-line is known. 
Or from the wells of human curiosity. 



CD d^^ i'j . 



